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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24506869">Courtship</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scattyuk/pseuds/Scattyuk'>Scattyuk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Changing Tenses, F/M, Gap Filler, Introspection</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:35:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>540</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24506869</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scattyuk/pseuds/Scattyuk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days she thought she could be happy forever in those moments. Some days she wistfully, treacherously wondered just how old a man the king would become.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Courtship</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Once</em>
</p><p>Sometimes he caught her hand and pulled her for a kiss behind a pillar. Sometimes he span her into doorways. Sometimes his fingers brushed against hers, laced demurely behind her back or placed nonchalantly nearby on a chair back or table. Sometimes he just smiled their own private smile across a room or as they passed. One day he backed her into the linen store and pressed in close against the shelves, sliding his hands into her hair, his thumbs tracing her cheekbones, while she wrapped her fingers around his belt and leaned up to touch her nose to his. To part her lips as he tongue slid gently against hers.</p><p>Some nights he came to her, would sit at her table, eating sweetmeats, laughing as he described dodging guards and letting her tease him for his follies. Some nights he would fall asleep in her arms, as they talked and kissed, and kissed and talked. Some mornings she would wake to find her cheek creased against his shirt, to see his eyes slowly open with a smile, to watch him fall clumsily head over feet as he tried to climb out the back window at dawn. “Worse than Merlin,” she would laugh.</p><p>Some days she thought she could be happy forever in those moments. Some days she wistfully, treacherously wondered just how old a man the king would become.</p><p>
  <em>And</em>
</p><p>“Some days,” Arthur says, “I think I should just marry you now, and let my father say what he likes when he finally comes to his senses.”</p><p>“One day things will change,” she tells him and hopes she’s telling the truth.</p><p>Some days she wonders if her life would have been different if Lancelot had stayed. Once she wishes she could see him again. And then she does, and he stays and she barely notices how his eyes never leave her. She doesn’t see Arthur watch him. One day she asks Lancelot for a promise and only understands as she faces his funeral pyre what price her choice invoked. </p><p>Later she wonders if his spirit came back to bewitch and tempt her in revenge. It is Arthur who eventually, finally reminds her that the real man would never have denied her truest wish, would never have stepped between them. She feels the guilt worst of all when she thinks what a relief it is to simply be loved, and not unrelentingly adored. To stand on sure ground, and not balance on a pedestal.</p><p>But when she at last is wearing a gown and not a kirtle, and Arthur pulls open all her laces, not just a few, and slowly peels away her chemise, and falls to his knees before her in his – no, <em>their</em> room, she realises that real, simple, grounded love can still be so much more. Can reach and shake the highest plinth.</p><p>
  <em>Future</em>
</p><p>Sometimes, when she is Queen, she will still pass those pillars, and think of all they have built on such strong foundations. She will glance in doorways and think of all the people they have welcomed into their new world. She will feel his fingertips brush against hers, and know she could live her whole life in the memory of his smile.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Written on a hot lockdown day when I had spent too much time rewatching Merlin and wishing we got more Arthur/Gwen moments (because the clumsy-besotted Arthur in the opening of Queen of Hearts was just adorable). And also becaseu I didn't think the show really explained enough about why she wanted Arthur and not Lancelot in the end. I leave the reader to decide whether the final paragraph refers to the final season or after that outrageous ending. ;)</p><p>Also, this came out of my head in past and then present tense as written. Decided to just roll with it, and put the final section into future tense.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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